Previously
- This blog has moved
- Curly Larry & Mo
- RIP Malcolm McLaren
- Easter y'all
- Election Season
- Cocaine Cowboys
- Northwest Passage
- The Day Today
- Rage Against the Machines
- Pop Cultured
Sonic Links
- Sonic Avenger in MySpace
- Age of Chance
- Miss Kubelik
- Line Dancers On Acid
- ireallylovemusic
- Freeway Blogger
- Postsecret
- Banksy
- emptyfreedotcom
- Puppetgov.com
- Down With Tractors
- Blog Doctor
- Why Women Hate Men
- The Lefsetz Letter
Listening to: Jackson 5 - Looking Thru the Windows
I wasn't planning to contribute anything to the already overwhelming volume of online responses to the death Michael Jackson last Thursday. To be honest, like most of us, it's a long time since I've thought of him as anything other than the world's most famous victim of Sleb Culture. But as someone pretty good at writing about these things once said, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone -and I got to thinking. Ok, it's been a while since he's been on top of his game recording-wise but so what? When Sir Paul eventually goes to meet his maker, my bet is that Macca tributes will be waxing poetic about The Beatles, not Wings...who were actually together for longer.
My own first MJ-moment came as a child when I heard the guitar-chiming/stop-start-bass intro to I want You back on the radio. It still makes me, mentally at least, stop what I'm doing when I hear it now. It also occurred to me; how many of us ever buy records, that have lasting value decades after being released, by someone whose voice hasn't yet broken? The Jackson 5 were fronted by just such a performer, but as a listener you never question the 10 year-old pre-pubescent vocal chords. You don't need to, because of the sheer Greatness thereof. Not many 13 year-olds get to record ballads about waking up in the morning next to the love of their life, but his is up there with the best of 'em.
Of course there's the plethora of non-musical reasons for which he had the world's attention: The plastic surgery, the confused sexuality, the (alleged) abusive childhood, the Messiah complex, the children, Neverland, his marriages, his own closely-guarded brood, and so it goes. I always thought that some aspects of his public image throughout the years were bad attempts to look wierd and therefore press-worthy (Bubbles the chimp springs to mind) but there was enough genuine intrigue around him as an individual to warrant attention most of the time, without any invention. One thing's for sure - there'll be some interesting books on their way to the highstreet as I type this.
I'm currently re-evaluating MJ's place on Popular Culture's scale of importance, and I'm placing him a fair bit higher than I might have this time last week.
For now though, just click on the above clip of the J5 performing the awesome Looking Thru the Windows on TV. MJ's great vocal, the orchestration, the airborne backing-vocals, the cavernous chunks of Theme From Shaft-informed guitar alongside it's fuzzed-out punctuations, the moves. It was all there, even then.
I'm currently re-evaluating MJ's place on Popular Culture's scale of importance, and I'm placing him a fair bit higher than I might have this time last week.
For now though, just click on the above clip of the J5 performing the awesome Looking Thru the Windows on TV. MJ's great vocal, the orchestration, the airborne backing-vocals, the cavernous chunks of Theme From Shaft-informed guitar alongside it's fuzzed-out punctuations, the moves. It was all there, even then.
It's been one of those weeks. Found myself back at the Dental surgery yesterday morning. Ok, I knew I was in for the first installment of a root-canal treatment, and that this probably wouldn't involve many laffs. But I also figured that I'd be dosed to the gills with enough anaesthetic to render this a merely uncomfortable encounter, as opposed to a painful one. Funny how wrong you can be. He (my dental practitioner of choice, name withheld) had decided whilst looking at an X-ray that the nerve of the tooth was dead, and as a result no anaesthesia would be called for. I replied that I really wouldn't mind having some, even if it were for no reason. He ploughed on regardless, partly I think because he was behind schedule with his appointments.
Yes, you know what's coming. No dead nerve to be found, just a live and very angry one. First time I've ever been remotely vocal in a dental situation I have to say. Screaming was simply the natural, primal response to that particular kind of deeply invasive pain.
My dental visits are rarely a leisurely experience these days. Costly too. Private dental treatment costs £180 per half-hour...and that's just the time. Treatment-costs are added to that. You can see why a lot of people who don't have access to NHS treatment are staying away in droves. Back there in three weeks for the second installment. I'm losing sleep already.
Yes, you know what's coming. No dead nerve to be found, just a live and very angry one. First time I've ever been remotely vocal in a dental situation I have to say. Screaming was simply the natural, primal response to that particular kind of deeply invasive pain.
My dental visits are rarely a leisurely experience these days. Costly too. Private dental treatment costs £180 per half-hour...and that's just the time. Treatment-costs are added to that. You can see why a lot of people who don't have access to NHS treatment are staying away in droves. Back there in three weeks for the second installment. I'm losing sleep already.
Ok, so apparently May didn't exist this year. I'm officially a bad blogger. That's bad meaning bad. It's not that stuff didn't occur in Sonic World this past month, (quite the contrary) just nothing that urged me to render it in written form and blast it into the blogosphere. Bear with me citizens, as this will happen occasionally.On the upside, the sun has indeed been shining down on this green and pleasant wasteland we know as Cruel Britannia over the last few days. In fact the sun continues to beat down as I write this. I'm feeling quite Mediterranean I have to say. You know those mornings when the sky is that certain shade of blue that seems to make the likelihood of cloud-formation extremely unlikely? Well normally, we don't here...but this last weekend has seen a daily succession of those azure, cloud-free skies. As a result, yours truly is a little less caucasian than I've been for quite some time. Plus, just over one year on from my unfortunate mishap of 2008, my right-leg is working fine again. In fact, it's better than before.
Things are on the Up pop-kids, I can feel it...
Listen/Download here:
